Help & knowledgebase

Each Droplet is billed per hour up to its monthly cap. You can choose to fund your account via PayPal or you can pay your monthly bill via credit card.

How do I choose between monthly and hourly billing?

Each Droplet is billed per hour up to its monthly cap. The monthly cost of your Droplet is calculated by running the hourly rate for 28 days (672 hours). Once you reach that amount (e.g. $10/mo for a 1GB VPS), you will not be charged for your server's additional runtime. This allows you to destroy your server before the maximum monthly charge and pay only for what you use.

Am I charged while my Droplet is in a powered-off state?

Yes. Your diskspace, CPU, RAM, and IP address are all reserved while your Droplet is powered off. If you want to save a Droplet for future use take a snapshot of it and then destroy it. You'll be able to create a new Droplet from the snapshot image anytime to bring it back online.

Do I have to pay the cost of the server every time I create a new one?

No — you only need to pay for 1 hour of usage. Spinning up a new 512MB server just to test something for a couple of minutes will only cost you $0.0074

What form of payments do you accept?

We accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and PayPal.

Do you accept debit cards? How about virtual, electron, and prepaid cards?

Yes, we accept these cards but only in select geographies. We apologize for the inconvenience, but because we receive a large amount of fraudulent sign-ups we've had to restrict the use of virtual/electron and debit cards in some geographies. We made this decision after finding that up to 80% of abusive sign-ups used these types of cards. If you would like to pay with one of these cards, we recommend using the card to send a payment via PayPal.

Do you have a list of issuing banks from India whose credit, debit or prepaid cards are known to work on your payment gateway?

We have seen customers using cards issued by Citibank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, IndusInd Bank, RBL Bank, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank have a lower decline rate than others. We would recommend that you use cards issued by one of these banks or use your existing card to send a payment via PayPal.

Am I charged when I enter a credit card?

No — when you enter a card, we only run an authorization charge of $1.23. This authorization is refunded back to your card by your bank in no more than 30 days. Your card is charged at the end of the monthly billing cycle.

When do you charge my credit card?

We charge your credit card on the 1st day of each month after usage.

Can you charge my card on a specific date?

We automatically attempt to charge your credit card on the 1st of each month. After you become a verified customer, you can go to the billing page and pay your outstanding balance at any time by clicking the "Pay now" button that appears underneath your balance.

What is an outstanding balance?

Balances are considered outstanding if a payment has failed to process on the first of the month, or if the value you have loaded via PayPal is not enough to pay the invoice in full. If you receive a "Server Termination Urgent" notice, you will need to contact DigitalOcean Support to remove the lock on your account to pay the outstanding balance. If we don't hear from you within 14 days from when your account was suspended, your Droplets will be purged and data will not be available for recovery.

If you have any questions about an outstanding balance, how to add a payment option, or about billing in general, please feel free to contact DigitalOcean Support.

How to Read My Invoice

Invoices are issued on the first calendar day of every month and detail charges you accrued in the previous month: what Droplets you have run, their size, for how long, and their cost. Invoices do not include payments you may have made (via PayPal or a credit card) and do not serve as receipts for any such payments. You can customize the information displayed on an invoice—for example, your business contact information or DigitalOcean's VAT identification number—by going to the Settings Page and filling out the "Contact Information" section accordingly. The name, email address, company name, company address, and phone number fields are included on an invoice, and changes to this information take effect immediately on any invoices viewed thereafter.

Can I pay in advance?

We do not currently accept pre-payment, but you can add additional credit to your account at anytime by sending in a PayPal payment.

If I have multiple credit cards on file, which one do you charge?

Our billing system will attempt to charge your cards starting with the most recently added card. If there is a specific card you'd like to use for payment, please make sure it is the most recently added card or delete any other cards from your account.

How am I charged if I have both PayPal and a credit card on file?

At the end of the month, if there is a balance on your account, our billing system will attempt to charge any credit cards that you have on file on the 1st of the month. If you'd like to use PayPal instead, please make sure your account has enough credit at all times to cover your monthly billings.

My credit card expired or was declined and the payment failed. How do I fix it to prevent my account from being suspended?

You can resolve this issue by adding a new credit card to your account, or by making a deposit via PayPal. As we do not allow credit cards to be edited, you will need to delete the old credit card and add a new one. Our billing system will also send you payment reminders before any actions such as service suspension are taken on your account.

How do I apply a promo code?

As a new customer you can easily apply a promo code to your account from the Payment Methods page here. Enter the case sensitive code in the promo code field. Once entered correctly, the credits will automatically apply to your account. In order to spin up your first Droplet you must also have a valid credit card on your account or make a PayPal deposit. Keep in mind that we only allow one promo code per account, so if you've redeemed one in the past you may not add another. To see your promo code history please visit your billing page.

I have a credit, why can't I create a Droplet?

In order to use the credit you'll need to activate your account by adding a valid credit card to your account or prepay via PayPal.

I submitted a PayPal payment. Why hasn't my balance been updated?

Balances are not updated in real time. Once you submit your PayPal payment it gets processed and added to our system. You should see the updated balance in a few hours.

Can I transfer credits from one account to another?

No - credits cannot be transferred between accounts.

Do you offer refunds?

No, we do not offer refunds. If there are extenuating circumstances, please open up a ticket with our support team.

Can I be billed using my local currency?

Since DigitalOcean is primarily a US-based company, DigitalOcean will continue to bill in USD. This allows our pricing to remain stable and consistent, rather than fluctuating with exchange rates. We do apologize if this causes an inconvenience.

How much do Floating IPs cost?

Floating IPs are free to use. Though due to the shortage of IPv4 addresses available, we charge $0.006 per hour for addresses that have been reserved but not assigned to a Droplet. In order to keep things simple, you will not be charged unless you accrue $1 or more.